How much do you know about.... Civics?

My wife sent me a link to a short civics trivia test. The quiz is made up of 20 questions found on the actual citizenship test with a few curveballs in the mix. The last ten questions may be a bit harder, but a score of around 24 out of 30 is considered a passing grade. They score you on the number right and you can compare it to others in your state, and to others in your age range. It is pretty cool! I got a 26 on the test, which is 6 points higher than most people in my age range and state of residence.

Check it out at http://games.toast.net/independence/

Let me know what you get!

Later!

Sorry for the delay...

Sorry I have not been more attentive to the blog. A lot of stuff going on. I have a huge project at work that is taking up most of the brain cells in my head, things are busy around home, and I have been distracted by a injury (maybe) to my right knee. The doctor suspects I have a torn meniscus (cartilage) that will maybe require some outpatient surgery. We will see. However, to let you know what has been happening, I have a number of history demos coming up soon, (Love them, as they pay really well!) and I and working on the next two batches of DeeJay Cellars wine. They are a Port and a Cabernet. Both are about two weeks or more from bottling. And I am eagerly awaiting Easter, as I gave up Soda, all candy, and all potatoe products for Lent. (I am not a Catlikker, but a Lutheran, but I see a good lesson in the practice of giving up things for Lent.) I am not really missing anything, but I am looking forward to having a chance at eating those danged Kathryn Beich candy bars my son is selling for his Scout Troop! Dang those caramel bars are good. I hear them calling my name! Anyway, that is all for now.

Later!

The Dungeon Master is dead...

The world of role playing lost it's greatest treasure yesterday. E. Gary Gygax, the creator of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons and arguably the biggest influence on all role playing out there today, died of an abdominal anuerism at the age of 69. The story can be found at http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9885383-1.html or just about any where on the net. Alot of people are writing about their feelings, and I find it very heartening that they are not being depressed and morose about it, but taking it rather well and giving him the kind of comments that I think he would have enjoyed. I am giving you a sample of those I have come across.

"Too bad he didn't get to re-roll his savings throw. The Lord is a harsh DM indeed. This is a sad day. Should've had an amulet of health or something.I mean, think about it, if Gary Gygax hadn't created D&D, how different my life would have been. I probably would've played sports, gone outside more, had sex before going to college, been more popular... Damnit Gary, YOU RUINED MY LIFE!!!"
"j/k My life has been infinitely more interesting thanks to the stuff I learned by gaming."

"No testament I've read yet even touches on how important this man's efforts have been in absolutely everything enjoyable in my life - EVEN if I didn't play DnD on a regular basis, the sheer idea of role-playing, creating adventures, looking forward to sharing awesome ideas in gaming environments with buds with pizza and pepsi and later beer and smokes and Magic the Gathering all traces back to the simple ideas this guy brought forth of randomizing storytelling in the fantasy worlds of swords, knights and dragons. World of Warcraft would not be without him. The Lord of the Rings movies, likewise. Supremely important this being was. He deserves a mountain throne, an elven palace or some elemental plane named after him."

"What loot did he drop?"

"What...no saving throw?
:-(
Well, I guess we all have to go meet the 'Dungeon Master' in the sky at some point...."

"Get the cleric."

reply- "That would permanently lower his constitution by one. I don't think Gary would want to live that way."

second reply- "Are you sure? Start with Speak with Dead and ask!
Unfortunately, I think his death qualifies as Death From Old Age and Raise Dead, Resurrection, and True Resurrection specifically exclude that."

"No one gets out of "HIS" adventures alive at the end of the game."

And finally, the one that made me laugh the most:

"I find it ironic that the man credited for preventing so much sex had six kids himself."


As for myself, I have been playing Gary's game or some version of it ever since I was about 12 years old or so. And now my son plays it too. I was hooked from the moment I opened the basic boxed set, oh, so many years ago and never let go of that desire to play. I was fortunate to meet him at Gen Con 2007 and got my photo taken with him and my son. I even got his signature on my D&D book. That's a Pretty Cool Thing in the the geek world.

Alot of the gaming I did was influential to my imagination, hobbies, and in some ways, view of life now a days. Thanks, Gary! It has been, and will continue to be fun.

Later!

My Nerd Score

Granted I am taking a que from my buddy Chuck at Miri's Dad on Blogger.com, but I thought it would be fun to add my Nerd Score in my blog too.



So, I am, like most things in life, a little bit more than average than the rest of the people I meet.

Yes, I am a gamer, and XBOXer, a Trekkie, and all those other things that get you called a geek or nerd, but at least I embrace the fact!

Later!

Oh those sexy, tawdry Vikings.... Gudrun, you look so hot!

Check out this new article from Yahoo. I always refused to believe that our Western European ancestors only though that mud and dirt were the pinnacle of fashion!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080227/sc_nm/viking_dress_dc_1

LONDON (Reuters) - Vikings were much snappier dressers than thought, according to new evidence unearthed by a Swedish researcher.
The men were especially vain while the women dressed provocatively, adorning themselves in vivid colors, silk ribbons and glittering bits of mirrors, said Annika Larsson, a textile researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden.
"They combined oriental features with Nordic styles," she said in a statement. "Their clothing was designed to be shown off indoors around the fire."
The findings are based on the Swedish Vikings who traveled east into what is now Russia rather than the Danish or Norwegian Vikings who went west.
Until Larsson's discovery in the Russian region of Pskov near Novgorod -- in an area used as an Eastern trade route -- most people had believed Viking dress was conservative.
Her findings included a blue dress with a train fastened to the breasts with clasps to highlight the figure, she said.
These kind of ornate features in clothing, however, disappeared with the onset of medieval Christian fashion during a time the Swedish Vikings pushed into Western Europe, she said.
"It's easy to imagine that the Christian church had certain reservations about clothing that accentuated the breasts in this way," Larsson said.
(Reporting by Michael Kahn, Editing by Myra MacDonald)

It's Alive!

Well, after about 3 weeks of carefully treatment and monitoring, the first bottles of DeeJay Cellars wines have been bottled. We have bottled 28, 750
ml bottles of Merlot wine. This first batch of wine is name Red Shirt Merlot, giving honor to all those poor red shirted Star Trek guys that never made it back from a landing party or away team. The merlot, which still needs to age for at least three months has at this moment, a very buttery texture to it, with a good sense of oak and raspberry essence to it. It does seem to be a bit on the weaker side, but I think that is due to the relative newness of the wine. We figure the alcohol content is around 13%. I think the body and texture of the wine will definately improve with time. Plans are to open a bottle in one month, compare it to our first taste, and then compare another bottle at three months. For those who I have told I will share some wine, you can certainly expect a decent bottle of good table merlot, that will go with a nice sirloin and vegetables, and even go well with a pizza or pasta meal with tomato sauce.

In the photos you can see my son with the two fermenters. The merlot is to the back of the first photo and the liebfraumilch is still in the process of fermenting. The next two are the first couple of bottles of wine being corked with a very nice piece of machinery that makes bottleing very easy. Further along is the wine being racked from the carboy to the bottles. It really was about a three man operation and took about 20 minutes to get 28 bottles corked. The next is a shot of just some of our "babies" waiting to go to sleep for about three months. And finally, my vinting partner and I enjoy the very first glass of DeeJay Cellars Red Shirt Merlot.

The next bottling will tak place in late February or early march and if it is good, it will be the Kohlinar Liebfraumilch.

Yes, we are both Star Trek Geeks! (don't worry, not all the wines will be in homage to the greatest sci-fi televison series)

Prost!

Boobs and Wine....

Boobs and Wine?! What kind of blog post title do you call that? I call that, truth in writing. And truth be told, I like both items. A lot. A WHOLE lot! Okay, enough personal information. As you know I am currently trying to soak up as much as I can about wine. (both in the reading, creating and tasting of..) And one book I am at this point fascinated by is the Windows On The World Complete Wine Course by Kevin Zraly. I am currently reading about Champagne. Not the champagne that is made in America or else where, but about real champagne from Champagne, France. It has quite an interesting history, but one of the most interesting bits of history is the story of how the vessel we drink champagne from was developed. (so to speak)

Most people drink champagne from the traditional shallow, wide rimmed plastic glass that comes in two parts. Ever wonder why we drink it from those shaped glasses? Well, I shall tell you. (I am paraphrasing from the Zraly book here...)

This coupe design apparently dates back to Greek mythology (or history, depending on your opinion). The footed glass that has a shallow cup that widens out towards the rim was said to be molded from ( I love this...) the breast of Helen of Troy. Apparently Greeks believed (much like I do) that the drinking of wine was a sensual experience, so it only fits that the most beautiful woman of their time take part in the design of the drinking vessel. Now say what you will about Helen of Troy, but I gather from this information that Helen was a card carrying member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee.

Jump ahead a number of centuries and onto the stage of champagne drinking comes none other than Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France. She had it in mind that the time had come to "re-design" the traditonal shape of the champagne glass. And, yes, you guessed it, she had one molded to her own breast, and viola! We have much deeper glass that we sip our wine from. Apparently she was slightly more developed than the legendary Helen of Troy.

That being said, I shall look upon the drinking of wine with a new fondness and respect (and eagerness!) and say a word of thanks to those so dedicated to the enjoyment of drinking it that they used their own beauty to enhance the experience!

It must be said though, that the best glasses to drink champagne from are the tall flute or the tulip shaped glass. These shapes keep the champagne from losing the bubbles too quickly and enhance the smell and aroma of the drink.

A toast! To wine! And boobs!

Later!

Latest News on an old killer...

As many of you may or may not know, I have a keen interest in History, especially the time period of the 14th Century. You cannot study the 14th Century without at some point encountering the Black Death. Even today, the epidemic that killed close to a third of the population of Europe is interesting to many who study history, medicine, and diseases. In a recent news story from Yahoo News I found this. (below) Now I have more info that I can bore people with when giving historical demos! (not that I bore people, because if I did, no one would ask me back again!) Here is the full story...

Later!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Black Death that decimated populations in Europe and elsewhere during the middle of the 14th century may not have been a blindly indiscriminate killer, as some experts have believed. An analysis of 490 skeletons from a London cemetery for Black Death victims demonstrated that the infection did not affect everyone equally, two U.S. scientists said on Monday.
While many perfectly healthy people certainly were cut down, those already in poor health prior to the arrival of the plague were more likely to have perished, they found.
"A lot of people have assumed that the Black Death killed indiscriminately, just because it had such massive mortality," anthropologist Sharon DeWitte of the University at Albany in New York, said in a telephone interview.
People already in poor health often are more vulnerable in epidemics. "But there's been a tradition of thinking that the Black Death was this unique case where no one was safe and if you were exposed to the disease that was it. You had three to five days, and then you were dead," DeWitte said.
The plague epidemic of 1347 to 1351 was one of the deadliest recorded in human history, killing about 75 million people, according to some estimates, including more than a third of Europe's population.
DeWitte analyzed skeletons unearthed from the East Smithfield cemetery in London, dug especially for plague victims and excavated in the 1980s, for bone and teeth abnormalities that would show that people had health problems before they died of plague.
She found such abnormalities in many skeletons, suggesting these people had experienced malnutrition, iron deficiencies and infections well before succumbing to the Black Death.
The proportion of people with such signs of frailty in the cemetery, compared to those who appeared to have been of robust health before the epidemic, indicated that the infection was somewhat selective in who it killed, DeWitte and Pennsylvania State University anthropologist James Wood reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Some experts have thought the Black Death -- named after the black spots the bubonic form of the plague caused on the skin -- killed indiscriminately regardless of age, sex or level of health because it was so virulent and the European population so immunologically unprepared, DeWitte and Wood wrote.
"The Black Death was highly virulent and undoubtedly killed many otherwise healthy people who would have been unlikely to die under normal-mortality conditions," they wrote. But people already in poor health were more likely to die, they wrote.
Many scientists think the plague was caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterial disease spread by fleas from rats. It still kills between 100 and 200 people a year.
The Black Death pandemic thought to have begun in Asia, then spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
"On average, it killed between 30 to 50 percent of affected populations. But we know that there were some areas where mortality was even higher. So there would have been villages that were completely wiped out," DeWitte said.
Other experts now think the Black Death may have been caused not by bubonic plague but by a viral hemorrhagic fever, similar to the disease caused by the Ebola or dengue viruses.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Cynthia Osterman)

Exploring the Spirit...

Recently the Pastor of my church and I have embarked upon a new adventure... one that involved deliberate and intensive research in to the spirit... spirit of alcohol that is. Yes, we have begun to brew/vint/ferment wine! It was something that I was interested back in my college days when I was involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism and was involved in the brewing of beer, wine and mead. It was not for the purpose of having a cheap source of alcohol, as I do not drink much, but rather for the love of learning and experimenting with something could be made and then shared. I mentioned this to him in passing and it just so happened that we were both interested in doing this so we have invested a bit in the equipment and supplies and currently have a Merlot and Liebfraumilch in the primary and secondary fermenters. We are very close to delivering our first "children" and finding them good homes. (Bottling and sharing them) It will be at least a month before they are truly ready to drink, but we will have to do a taste test to see if we have succeeded in our efforts. I will let you know how things are progressing. The working name for our winery is "Red Shirt Winery. Home of the Live Long and Prosper Wines." (Yeah, both he and I are Star Trek fans...)

I have always liked wine and am endeavoring to increase my knowledge of not just wine making but understanding the different wines and what is a good or a not so good wine. I can highly recommend the book by Kevin Zraly, Windows on the World: Complete Wine Course, 2008 edition. It is fun book to read, packed with information, and probably the best handbook on learning how to read wine, pick wine and taste or enjoy wine. If you like wine, then get this book.

Remember this one thing though about wine. A good wine is any wine that you like or fits your needs. What might be trash to someone else, might be just what you are looking for.

Prost!

What I wished I had said...

When a member of our Boy Scout troop died in a drowning accident, I talked to the boys in our troop about life and what to do with it. I tried to give them my thoughts, but it did not come out very well. Here is what I wished I had said.

When you wake up in the morning, you do not expect that you will be dead before the afternoon arrives, but yet sometimes, bad things happen, and death does come. So live your life like there may be no tomorrow. Life should be treated like money; it should be spent and not saved. Spend your life well and not frivolously or on waste full things. Use it to its fullest amount. Don't save it hoping to wait for something great to come along. Go out and try new things that excite you. Do things that scare you! Ask the prettiest girl in the room to dance with you... you never know what might happen. Eat dessert first! Get out of your comfort zone and risk a little. Don't be unwise with your life, because like money, spending your life unwisely or in stupid, or dangerous ways, only wastes it. As a young person, you are given this feeling of immortality. Let that feeling enbolden you to try new and exciting things, but don't forget that you are NOT immortal. But not living life to its fullest and best is just as good as being dead.



Later!

Whew! It has been a rough start to 2008!

Yep, the title pretty much sums it up! 2008 has been a very rough one so far for me and members of my family. It actually began before Christmas, with my dad getting ill and going to the hospital for weakness and internal bleeding. Just before that he fell while getting a dialysis treatment and although he got lucky and didn't break anything, he was quite sore and bed ridden for a number of days. Then right around New Years, he goes back and ends up in the hospital over the New Years Holiday. Again, nothing was found to be wrong, even though we family members knew it was more possible bleeding in his gut. No real action was taken by the doctors at this time, so he went home with nothing new for treatment for his ailments. Then, on the 8th of Jan, our area was socked with a huge amount of rainfall, flooding many areas that normally do not flood. We did get some water in our basement, but it was nothing compared to what others had. The towns of Watseka and Pontiac looked much like scenes from Hurricane Katrina. Check out this link for an aireal view of the flooding in Watseka. http://www.timesrepublic.info/articles/2008/01/16/local_video/video999.txt Worst of all, one of the Boy Scout Leaders in my troop was driving to work in the early morning and was taken off the road by the storm waters, and due to a number of reasons, one of which was an irrational fear of water, he was drowned in his truck. He was only 24 years old, and a great guy. It was a huge shock to our little community. Our troop paid him honor with parade guards during his funeral and we hope to put up a memorial for him at out Scout hut. He was way too young to be lost like that. And to think that he died from the one thing that scared him the most...

And then on the 13th, after visiting my father to see how he was, it was discovered that he was actually worse off that we all thought. Many of us felt that he was on his last legs. Around midnight that day, he complained of all over pain and was rushed to the hospital. After what was truly touch and go for about two days, we discovered that he had lost large amounts of blood due to internal bleeding and that caused a heart attack. (first one I can recall in my family) Again,we all thought these were his last days on earth. It was really a tough time for all of us. My sister and I have not talked so much on the phone to one another ever! We were constantly getting updates on what was happening. Many people were hoping for the best and saying their prayers and it must have worked, because, to our disbelief, our dad was released from the hospital a mere 4 days after all this. My dad says he was half dead. I disagree. I think he was 3/4 dead. To think that he would be home so soon was incredible! It is a good and happy ending to a long story, and I hope that the rest of the year will not be so dramatic!

Later!

a short for what it's worth...

Heard on a recent documentary about the history of video games:

Girls play with dolls. Boys don't play with dolls, they play with Action Figures. Adults don't play with action figures or dolls, they play with Avatars.

Whether you play massive online multiplayer games like World or Warcraft, or Second Life, I guess that we never stopped playing with our toys. It is only a progression of time and maturity that changes the kind of doll or action figure we play with.


and did you know, that in Second Life, there is a virtual $2.7 million dollars used in transactions per month? It is only a short time before this becomes real money.

VTX Riders Creed

I found this on a recent visit to a VTX owners website. It is the riders creed for VTX Riders. Some of it is a bit silly, but deep down it strikes true and I would have to say that it is pretty much a good creed. (a bit long though!) (( and for those who don't know, "X" stands for the VTX bike, not "insert bike name here", although I suppose that could work too!))

From the VTX Riders website:

Rider’s Credo... (UPDATED Version)

I ride purely, and only, because it is fun and offers me the opportunity to meet others of like mind.

I ride because I enjoy the freedom I feel from being exposed to the elements, and the vulnerability to the danger that is intrinsic to riding.

I do not ride because it is fashionable to do so.

I ride my X, not wear it. My X is not a symbol of status. It exists simply for me, and my pleasure.

My X is not a toy. It is an extension of my personality.

I strive to learn what I can about the inner-workings of my X, from the most basic to the most complex, so that I may be able to help others who may not have the mechanical ability to understand the complexity of the X.

I strive to constantly better my skill of control over my X. I will learn its limits, and use my skill to become one with my X, so that we may keep each other alive. Working together in harmony, we will become a respected team.

I do not fear death. My fear is what a premature death due to unsafe riding habits would do to my family. I will ride safely in order to protect them from the negative impact.

I do not ride to gain attention, respect, or fear from those that do NOT ride, nor do I wish to intimidate or annoy them. For those that do not know me, all I wish from them is that they take the opportunity to get to know me. For those that desire to know me, I will share with them the truth of myself.

I will never be the aggressor on the highway.

I will show respect to other riders more experienced or knowledgeable than I am. I will learn from them all I can.

I will not show disrespect to other riders less experienced or knowledgeable than I am. I will teach them what I can. It will be my task to mentor new riders into the lifestyle of the rider, so that a respect for those who ride may be gained from everyone I meet. I shall instruct them, as I have been instructed by those before me.

I will not judge other riders on their choice of machine, their appearance, or their profession. I will judge them only on their conduct as riders and human beings.

I will stand ready to help any other rider that truly needs my help. I will never ask another rider to do for me what I can do for myself.

I ride because I love freedom, independence, and the movement of the ground beneath me.

But most of all, I ride to better understand myself, my machine, the lands in which I ride, and to seek out and know other riders like myself.

-Author Unknown-

A Well Regulated Militia

I am not sure why all of a sudden this topic has become more and more prevalent in my mind, but with the recent shooting of innocents by loopy brained idiots who were pretty much wastes of space, I suppose that more gun control nut jobs are gonna start screaming about stricter gun laws. And as most of you know from reading this blog, I am a big advocate of more guns for those who are allowed to have them. (NOTE: I said those allowed to have them, not EVERYONE!) Anyway, this came across my desk and I thought that this guy made alot of good sense. His name is Bruce Kauffmann and he is published in the newspapers, usually in the commentary section. His column is "History Lessons" and it is quite good. The link to the article, which I will include in it's entirety, is at http://concealed.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/%E2%80%A2-kauffmanns-history-lesson/.

I provide the link as it has a bunch of other 2nd amendment thoughts and links that you might use if you so wish to investigate the matter further.

Anyhow, I agree with what Kauffmann has to say and only wish I could have said it first, but then I am not a columnist, nor much of a writer. So I let others say if for me and then pass it along to you. Here is the column.

Bruce’s History Lessons: The oh so controversial second amendment

By Bruce Kauffmann Special to the Tribune-Star When the Bill of Rights was ratified this week (Dec. 15) in 1791, the Founders never dreamed that centuries later the Second Amendment would become so controversial. To them, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” was fairly straightforward language.
How wrong they were, as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to rule on whether Washington, D.C.’s strict firearms law violates the Constitution, “a decision,” The Washington Post wrote, “that will raise the politically and culturally divisive issue of gun control just in time for the 2008 elections.”
The main controversy is over the phrase “A well regulated militia,” and its relationship to the statement “the people’s right to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Gun-control advocates believe this language means that if you don’t belong to a “regulated militia” your right to own a gun can be “infringed.”
Gun-rights advocates counter by noting that the amendment does not grant a right; it recognizes a right already granted. The amendment does not say, “The people have the right to keep and bear arms.”
It says, “the (already established) right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” And they have a point. As even the Supreme Court has acknowledged, the right to own firearms precedes the Bill of Rights.
Gun advocates also note that because the amendment gives the right to bear arms to the “people,” not the states, claiming that this right is dependent on anything the states do or don’t do — including forming militias — is ludicrous. After all, the Bill of Rights mentions no specific rights that the states possess, but several the people do.
Two additional points: In 1791, most state militias did not give guns to militiamen when militias were formed. Militiamen brought their guns with them — from home. Indeed, the amendment says they can “keep” their firearms, not merely “bear” them during military service.
Finally, (my hero) James Madison’s original Second Amendment language was as follows: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country.”
Written that way, he is saying that if the people don’t have the right to arms, there can’t be a militia. That Congress reversed the order does not change Madison’s intent.
Granted, all constitutional rights, including free speech and gun ownership, are subject to reasonable restrictions — you can’t yell “Fire” in a crowded theater, and felons can’t possess firearms. But the general right to own firearms is constitutionally protected. We will see what the Supreme Court thinks.

Bruce Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net

Snippets from Maxim

Maxim Magazine, the magazine for men is by far the coolest magazine I have seen in a long time. It is full of cool gadgets, interesting information, advice, jokes, reviews of all the latest and greatest and well, good looking women. Playboy it is not! And I know this sound so cliche, but I do read it for the articles! And to prove it, here are some really funny and cool little bit of information gleened from its December 2007 pages!

A silver lining to global warming. pg. 44
All that melted glacier has to go somewhere, and what better place that to your liver! Brewmeisters in Greenland are using H2O that's been frozen in the island's massive icecap for 2,000 years to make dark and pale ales they claim are fantastically polluntant-free. Farewell, mercury-infused hops. It was delicious while it lasted.

Bacon Porn: The sexiest sentence ever written. pg. 52
"Who, under any circumstances, is not rendered almost helpless by the tantalizing sound of bacon sizzling slowly in a skillet, by the taunting backwoods aroma that permeates the air, by the luscious textures of crisp fat and toothsome lean meat, and by the explosion of mingled salty and smoky and sweet flavors that virtually explode in the mouth?" - from The Bacon Cookbook, by James Villas.

The Great Weird of China: pg 116
Freestyle Grave Robbing: The black market for female corpses is resurgent in China. Recently deceased or "wet" women fetch up to $5,300 from parents who don't want their dead sons to be bachelors in the afterlife. Earlier this year, a grave robber confessed to murdering six women. Killing, he told police, was much easier than digging bodies out of the ground.

Lethal Injection Marathon: While America's courts wrestle with lethal in jection, China has put it on wheels. At least 40 "Death Cars" - vans that bring mobile lethal injection to remote communities - help China build on its 2006 world-record exectution tally of 1,010.

And the best, or rather, the worst snippet of them all: A reveiw of a perfume to be released on the world in December: pg 36

Can you smell the sex in the air? You can if you want to. VULVA Original is a "beguilling vaginal scent" that, according to its makers, "intensifies erotic fantasies" for men who sniff it. We took a whiff and it vividly transported us to a sexual fantasy of ours: the one where we're doing it inside a dumpster behind the Red Lobster.


There you have it. Useless info from a pretty cool magazine. And if you think Maxim is just for the guys, I can tell you that the person who introduced it to me was a girl who subscribes to it!


Later!

Do you play video games with your kid?

Some of you may have come across the study that says that 43 % of parents never play video games with there kids. (I am not one of them!) I enjoy playing video games with my kids and their friends. Hell, I am even trying to figure out what is the best buy for the new XBOX as a Christmas gift for them I am not the best player but I can hold my own. However, I do agree with one of the columnists from the Decatur Herald and Review when he states that most adults don't like playing with the kids because they are humiliating them,(see full article below) and I can understand that completely. My kids do not spend all their time playing XBOX, but far more time than I ever do and their skill at the games shows. My son can walk up to my character in Halo and kill me with one shot or hit with the butt of a gun, but I can send endless round of bullets at him and only take him down maybe 4 times out of 10. I know he is not cheating but it sure feels like something is wrong! Even my daughter is getting better than me! For a while, I felt assured that as long as she was on the other team, there was someone I could beat or at the very least, come out even with. It did not take long for her figure out it was a great deal of fun to whoop Dad's ass in a shoot'em up game! After that, I was all by myself.

Most of the reason I don't get to play the video games much is because of lack of free time, the XBOX being attached to the main TV of the house, and usually, there is little room for me when the kids all get together to play. But that is ok. I will find the time and play some video games with my kids, because I actually enjoy the experience and time with my kids is time with my kids. (Although there are times when I wish there was some time without them too!)

My fall back is that we play alot of board and card games and in those games, I can more than hold my own against them. These games require real brainwork and strategy and not just finger-eye coordination! Give me a game of Memoir '44 or RISK or something else that requires forethought and we'll see who is kicking butt and taking names!

Game On!

Later!

From the Herald and Reveiw Newspaper, 11/07

The Real Reason Adults Don't Play Video Games:

There was a time when I thought it was fun to play video games with my son, who is now 16. When Eric was five, we inherited an old Nintendo console that featured one-dimensional games. The older games had paths that led you places and you had few decisions to make outside of whether to go forward or in reverse. The games are addictive. I spent one day playing Super Mario Bros. 2 for about seven hours before finally figuring out how to kill Wart, the monster at the end.

When I played "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out," I could get through everyone until I got to Mike who flattened me with about three punches. It was then I found out yelling at games and complaining about the unfairness of hitting Iron Mike with a flurry of punches that did virtually no damage was at least therapeutic. That was the heyday of my video game playing. Eric graduated to Nintendo 64 and the end of my effective playing life was near. He easily beat me at just about every game except the driving games - years of actual behind-the-wheel experience finally paid off. I bring this up now because of a survey conducted by Associated Press-AOL Games that found 43 percent of people whose children play video or computer games never play along with them. This result means that 57 percent of them do play along.

The attitudes run the gamut. One man quoted in the AP story said he never plays video games. "It's just such a waste of time," said Jesse Lackman, 47, of Center, N.D. "I tell him, 'Do something that has some lasting value.'" Then there is stay-at-home dad Marvin Paup, 33, of Golden Valley, Ariz., who told AP he plays 30 hours a week with his son and dozens more on his own. Their current favorite is "Halo 3," a shooter game played online by thousands of players at a time.

Place me closer to Mr. Lackman than Mr. Paup. While I don't believe video games are a total waste of time, I can't fathom doing anything more than 30 hours a week other than work and sleep. Plus, I don't play video games much now because I am a poor loser. Eric and a couple of friends coerced me into playing some sort of James Bond 007 game a couple of years ago. It didn't take me long to figure out I wasn't playing the game, I was the object of the game. They used me as bait. I would peek around the corner and my character would get shot in the leg or arm - nothing fatal, just enough to drain some of my energy. Finally, I just said, "Kill me and put me out of my misery. Quit toying with me."

Now, I will occasionally play "Guitar Hero" with Eric, partly because I know many of the songs. While I am musically inept, I am not so inept that I can't at least play along in an easier mode. Inspired by a recent episode of "South Park," I found I'm quite good playing "Guitar Hero" acoustically.But don't let the survey fool you. Adults quit playing video games with their kids because they are tired of being humiliated by a kid. And if an adult tells you they don't play for a different reason, don't believe them. They're lying.

Managing Editor Dave Dawson's video game skills have eroded to the point he would have trouble defeating Bald Bull in "Punch-Out." He can be reached at ddawson@herald-review.com or 421-7980.

Finally, A role playing game that makes you shoot milk out of your nose!

I recently discovered a new Role Playing Game (taken pretty much tongue in cheek) called "Kobolds ate my Baby!" I have included the review from RPG. Net so that you can check it ouf for yourself if you are inclined to such sorts of games. I for one, would like to chekc this out. Maybe at a convention or if I get an extra $20 or so, I might just buy it and try it myself!

Check out the review at http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13459.phtml

Game on!

Later!

Gimme a break... well said!

OK, I thought Australia was a pretty level headed country and then I go and read this...(see the Yahoo News Story below) Since when has the jolly "HO HO HO" of Santa ever sugested that he is being offensive to women. It is not like he is standing around pointing at women in the mall and screaming "HO!" "HO!" "HO!" "And there's another one! HO!"

Only in this day and age of knee jerk liberals and people who want to regulate us into politically correct hell can something like this happen. Rather instead, blame the idiots who cannot speak correctly enough to say a proper word like "whore" but instead say "ho". Blame it on poor education, lack of culture, or shear stupidity.

The gal in the news article said it best... "Gimme a break!"

Later!

SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday. Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.
One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.
"Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.
"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they," she told the Telegraph.
"Leave Santa alone."
A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.

Burning down the house... movie house that is.

Yesterday afternoon, at around 10 am, one of the main historical landmarks in my hometown of Paxton, burnt to the ground. While the theater was not in operation at the time, there were three families living in apartments upstairs and a bookstore located directly next to the theater, all of which were lost. In addition, the Senior Center, located next door took heavy water and smoke damage and some fire damage. While not a complete loss, it will probably be enough to kill off the Senior Center which had trouble staying afloat. A hit like this most likely will put it under. All that remains now is a charred mess in the middle of town. The Majestic Theater, our most recognizable landmark, next to the water tower (seen in photos #2 and #5) and the clock tower, (photos #2 and #3) is now gone, most likely to never be replaced, and if replaced, it will be with a nuch different structure, most likely lacking that style and appeal found only in turn of the century theaters. It will not be the same anymore, walking in downtown Paxton. Our view will be so different from what we have come to expect and enjoy. In many ways, yet on a smaller scale of course, it was like the feelings we had when we saw that the Twin Towers were no longer part of our mental images. You come to expect to see certain things on a regular basis, and when they are gone, you realize just how much a part they are of your mental map of your town or city. At least no one was hurt and insurance will cover everything and it could have be so much worse that it was, but something very special was lost in Paxton, and I doubt if it will ever return. Later.

Only in Germany!

While bratwursts are certainly not one of the most perfect foods in the world, it is one of the more tasty in my opinion! Found this on the Yahoo new services. Now if only they would release the recipe!


Historian finds oldest recipe for bratwurst:

Thu Nov 1, 12:06 PM ET

A hobby historian has discovered the oldest known recipe for German sausage, a list of ingredients for Thuringian bratwurst nearly 600 years old.
According to the 1432 guidelines, Thuringian sausage makers had to use only the purest, unspoiled meat and were threatened with a fine of 24 pfennigs -- a day's wages -- if they did not, a spokesman for the German Bratwurst Museum said Wednesday.
Medieval town markets in Germany had committees charged with monitoring the quality of produce. Thuringian bratwursts, which are made of beef and pork, are symbols of Germany's cultural heritage and ubiquitous snacks at football matches.
Historian Hubert Erzmann, 75, found the ancient recipe, inscribed with pen and ink in a heavy tome of parchment, earlier this year while doing research in an archive in the eastern town of Weimar, museum spokesman Thomas Maeuer said.
"The discovery shows that there were already consumer protection laws in the Middle Ages," he said.
The instructions go on display Thursday in the Bratwurst Museum near the eastern city of Erfurt, Thuringia's capital.

Halloween in a Small Town

Happy Halloween... okay.. it is a bit late. Anyway, I wanted to share with you a really cool experience that many in the bigger towns never get to have. A full on, military style assault, led by lots of tiny costumed soldiers on the candy forts of

my hometown. Seriously though, it really is like a military operation. Trucks and vans, loaded with costumed kids stop at the corners, the kids pour out of vehicles, blanket both sides of the street and hit every house with a porch light on in search of candy goodies. The assault vehicles then drive down a bit and pick up their soldiers and set off for a new conquest in town.

This year was a bit different from years past, but no less fun or hectic! With the extension of the daylight saving time, trick or treaters were (for better or worse) going from house to house with about an extra hour of daylight. In addtion, the weather was very comfortable at a cool 60 degrees and no rain. These things, and the fact that my neighborhood and accompanying streets, are a known quanitity in town for giving out full sized candy bars and cans of soda, made for a very busy night! Starting at 5pm promptly, we were beset with dozens of trick or treaters and it did not stop until 7:30pm, which was when we were out of candy, out of breath, and simply too tired to go on! At one time, I estimated there were closed to 35 kids lined up on our sidewalk waiting to get a bit scared at our decorated porch and to get a good handout! Seriously!

Our neighbor has a fool proof system for counting the number of kids who come to our doors. She has a certain number of cans of pop and when it is gone, the night is over for her. This year she bought.... wait for it.... 436 individual cans of pop! And she ran out! At 7:15pm! She sent word that she was out and we had about 10-15 more kids come by our house after that so we are setting the number at an even 450 kids visiting our house for trick or treating!

It was a blast! I dress up to scare some of the kids as the sun sets and I usually go around chasing some of the older kids that I know, just to scare them a bit. I truly love Halloween for what it is. A chance to play and have fun and just be a kid. For some it is a "evil" day, or promotes greed or something like that. Come on, get a life. It is based on a real pagan holiday, but I don't think that candy and costumes is what that was all about. It is about having fun, dressing up, and letting loose for a bit. (And if you happen to be a producer of Halloween decorations or candy, then it is all about the money.)

I must say though, that the extra hour of daylight kind of ticked me off. I think Halloween should be done in the dark. Trick or treating in the daylight is kind of wimpy and reminds me of those times I visited family relation in big cities where they could only trick or treat during the day and sometimes, not even on the actual holiday! How lame is that!? I think that I might wait a bit longer before opening up my treasure trove next year and letting the sun go down a bit.

Oh, and one more thing. If you are a parent and read this, and your kid is going out to trick or treat, for Pete's sake, make them wear a costume! Being too cool to dress up with get you nothing at my house!

Photos: Just a small smattering of some of the crowds of costumed candy crunchers, a photo of me in my costume, and a real photo of a ghost! You can see right through her! These photos were taken by my neighbor at her home and passed on to me.

Later!

Where I have been

A friend of mine over at www.mirisdad.blogspot.com turned me on to this map thing. You can generate a map of those place you have been and link it to your blog. The site for it is http://www.world66.com/myworld66/visitedStatesI think it is kind of neat. I filled in only those states that I have at least spent a full day in. Traveling through does not really count as far as I am concerned. As a kid we traveled alot as a family and it instilled in me a real love to travel and visit places I have never been before. And as for my own family, we try to take a travel vacation every year, and hopefully this will stick with my kids too!

My dream is to travel in Europe but there are still so many places to visit here in the good old USA!

Later!

Where the heck are we?

Hey Everyone! Look what we have been up to last weekend! Another Boy Scout camping adventure! It has been a while since I have been to a Scout campout and this was a great weekend for it. The weather was great and the nights just perfect for sleeping outside. The theme of the camput out was the River Ridge Geo Quest. We were to use GPS units and compass' to find hidden waypoints in and amongst the trails of the Forest Glen Nature Preserve near Westville, IL. I found out about this about a month before hand and thought it might be a good excuse to get a GPS unit. I have been wanting one for a number of years and with gift money I recieved for my birthday, I went out and got a state of the art unit. I must say, these things are alot of fun! I played with it for about 2 weeks straight, trying to figure out how to use it, track my progress and find locations from afar. By the time I got to the camp, I felt ready to teach the boys how to use it and find where we needed to be.

Our goal was to participate in a number of GPS trail tests to find waypoints previously set by another GPS unit. The first was a timed event which had us running all over the place looking for markers with a set of numbers that we needed to write down and then add up later for accuracy. We came in 3rd place in this event. The big event had us walking about 7 miles all around the forst preserve looking for caches that held codes and other stuff (candy, swap items, etc..) that we needed to locate. There were 18 locations in all. We had only 5 hours to do this in so we needed to talk food and drink along with us. We started off, kind of slow, somewhat untrusting of the GPS unit, but after the third successful find we realized that it was working well for us and that if we followed the directions of the GPS rather than the trails, we could knock some time off by going off trail and moving directly in the direction of the waypoint. And boy did we go off trail. We blazed new trails that did not exist before and did a fair amount of climbing and jumping to get over obstacles and large hills and ravines. In the end we found 17 of the locations which was enough to get us 1st place in the competition and some nice prizes for our efforts! It was an exhausting hike and the chili we had back at camp was a welcome reward and we had no trouble getting to sleep that night! Over all, a great weekend and it has really sparked an interest in me for Geo-Cacheing. Check out http://www.geocache.com/ or google geo-cache to find out more about it!

As to the photos, (top to bottom, left to right...) The boys checking out one of the cache boxes that we found. This one had nothing in it, but you get the idea of what we were looking for.Veiw from the 150 foot fire watch tower at Forest Glen. The veiw was really spectacular! Julian and Dustin playing a game. (I always bring a game to camp... it is kind of expected now) and finally, the boys and I stopped off at the Pioneer Homestead cabin for a bit of a rest.

Go get a GPS unit! They are really cool and a lot of fun! And go outside and hike in the woods with it and have a blast! It is really worth it!

Later!

Capt. Kirk has been found!

This most recent news from the entertainment world about the upcoming Star Trek Movie. (From Yahoo News) I have never seen this guy and don't remember him from Smokin' Aces but word is out that people are liking him for the part. And after reading this, and you want more info or just wants to see that Star Trek is still alive and well, go to www.trekmovie.com.

Later!

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Does Hollywood have a new It Boy? Over sandwiches at Barney's Greengrass and over beer at Barney's Beanery, the talk is about Chris Pine, who might be the hottest new actor in town. He is in discussions to star as Captain Kirk in Paramount's "Star Trek" and in negotiations to star opposite George Clooney in Joe Carnahan's adaptation of the James Ellroy crime novel "White Jazz."
If Pine joins "Trek," which J.J. Abrams is directing, he would face off against Australian actor Eric Bana, who was cast Tuesday as the film's villain, Nero. It is unknown whether Bana would play a human or a member of the alien race, like a Klingon; as per the veil of secrecy that surrounds "Trek," parts are being solicited and offered without scripts.
Although not a complete unknown, Pine's biggest gig to date has been the male lead in the 2006 Lindsay Lohan movie "Just My Luck," which flopped. The 27-year-old Los Angeles native also caught some eyeballs with a scene-stealing role as a neo-Nazi assassin in "Smokin' Aces," also directed by Carnahan.
The biggest stumbling block to getting both roles at this point might be scheduling. Sources said "Trek" will shoot from November through March, while "Jazz" has a mid-January start. Although both sides are trying to sort out the date puzzle, it is possible that Pine and his camp could be forced to choose which role to take.
Paramount is not sitting idle while negotiations are under way, with sources saying that the studio is looking for backup actors to have on deck.
Already on the Starship Enterprise crew for Paramount are Anton Yelchin as the young Chekov, the Russian-born navigator; Zachary Quinto as the young Spock; and Zoe Saldana as the young Uhura, the communications officer.

Selling a Memory...

Today I sold a memory for $50. And I only had the slightest of guilty pangs about it. The item I sold was an early 1980's video game console called the Magnavox Odyssey 2 gaming console. It was the direct competitor to the Atari game console and in many ways, the Beta Max to the Atari's VHS. It was never a big seller, nor very popular, but like Beta tapes and the players, was better in quality and durability than VHS. I remember getting our Odyssey game as a Christmas gift from my parents. My uncle Bob was a Magnavox salesman and he got a good deal for them, but I shiver when I think how much they had to pay for it at the time. (More proof that either my parents really loved my younger brother and I or that we were really spoiled)
Anyway, we played the crap out of that game and obtained all kinds of game cartridges for it. The cartridges were these huge 4x3 inch cases that looked more like a Sci-Fi component than anything else, and it plugged into this large, sleek, silver and black keyboard that looked like something off of Star Trek. I loved it! It was so much cooler looking than the simple Atari box with it's single red button. I knew of only one other kid who had the Odyssey game so trading games was kind of tough. Everyone else had Atari!
This game console provided us with countless hours of fun at our house. Our friends would come over and we would spend hours in my room playing it. (I had a 13" color TV that I bought!) We especially loved playing it when the snow was so deep we had no school and it was so cold no amount of clothing was going to keep us warm....
That sparks another memory if I might be allowed to digress a bit... During those cold winter days of gaming on the Odyssey, I remember how often my friends would come over but they always had to keep their winter coats on while in the upstairs of my parents house. You see, there was no direct heat upstairs other than a really, really inefficient space heater. Temps during the winter rarely got above 55 degrees in the 2nd floor of the house, so a coat was a neccesity. Maybe that is the reason I like to have my own home so cool in the winter. I can attribute it to my formative years. My wife would attribute it to me being cheap and unwilling to pay for a heating bill! But anyway, on with the sale of a memory....
We would play the games, laughing, yelling, cursing, and hitting each other for hours at time. (Yes, I said hitting. It was a primitive form of affection where I came from, much like calling each other *only* by their last names.) These games, looking back at them now, are so simplistic compared to the games on XBOX or Playstation. But you know what, they were fun. And at times, very challenging! Alot of great memories were hooked up to that game.
I broke the old Odyssey game out a few years ago and hooked it up and decided to play it for a while. It still worked as it always did and the familiar and endearing "buulureep!" noise it made when you pressed start was like hearing from an old friend again. I showed my XBOX partner, (my son) the game and at first he was skeptical that an 8 bit video image game could be fun, but he was surprised at how fun it really was. He played a number of the games and liked them, but in the end, XBOX graphics and challenges had spoiled him for more modern fare. But at least he tried it!
The Odyssey game is gone now, sitting in a store in Champaign that specializes in retro audio/visual stuff. I hope he enjoys it, or that someone else buys it and get some good use out of it. It was collecting dust at my house and I guess I would rather have the cash than the item. I guess I still have the memories,(and now, so do you...) but sometimes, possessing the thing that made the memories can make those memories more tangible. Oh well. If need be, I can always buy it back or get on one Ebay. But I doubt it. Right now I am happy with the memory and the cash, and besides, I've got to save up for an XBOX 360!

Game on!

Later!

Ain't he just the most handsome dog ever?!?!

Just posting a nice pic of Gunnar. Damn he is handsome! Takes after his owner!

Later

Firepower Weekend!

Over the Labor Day weekend, my family and I, along with a number of family friends set out for a little out of the way place in Iroquois County to spend the weekend camping under the stars. This is a great place. It is about 5 miles from anything... no electricity, no running water other than the creek, and no people living nearby. Only about 80 acres of woods, grassland and fresh air. (The only drawback that anyone can talk about is that we have to dig our own latrine! Fortunately we have a old hosptial commode chair that we place over the stew hole and throw some canvas up over the branches of a downed hickory tree. It provides not only privacy, but a sense of normality when doing your business. ) We have been coming here now for about 4 years or so and each year we bring out all our guns, paintball gear, cooking accessories, and games and enjoy a few days of doing nothing in particular. One of my good friends nicknamed the weekend, "Firepower Weekend," and I think that moniker suits it quite well. And it sounds better than "Labor Day Weekend Campout." This year we had some new attendees to Firepower Weekend. One of my son's Boy Scout troop members came out and got to shoot the crap out of my 8mm Mauser! (I doubt it has been shot that much since 1944!) He also got to see how much food we can make in an evening, and even got to try my family's homemade ice cream for the first time. And our pastor, a big shooting and hunting fan, came out and almost immediately found himself involved in an airsoft BB gun fight with myself, my son and a couple of other kids! He also brough out a number of weapons and we enjoyed shooting them at targets or just plinking. (Plinking, for those who do not know, is just picking a safe target, where ever it might be and trying to hit it with your gun, or more accurately, bullet fired from the gun!!! It is quite fun and very theraputic!) As and aside, it was reassuring to later find out that he keeps a loaded .45 cal. 1911 Colt with hollow point bullets in his home.... just in case! In any case, we spent most of the afternoon shooting ammo at all kinds of things.

After cleaning up a bit from shooting, the kids found the foam swords and weapons I brought and managed to smack the crap out of each other for about an hour or so. It is funny to watch my dog Gunnar. He always seems to go after anyone who is attacking (in order of importance) Me, my son or daughter, my friend's kids, and lastly, anyone who looks vunerable.

Later that afternoon, after playing a game or two, we got the fire going well and cooked a number of pork loins, potatoes and onions, sweet potatoes and homemade ice cream with chocolate chip cookie bars. Man oh man was it good eating. The meal is always eagerly anticipated and this year proved to be a feast! Everything, and I mean everything, tasted wonderfull!

After supper, a bit of cleaning up, the homemade ice cream came out and the campfire talking began. I even got to make fry pies with my cast iron pie maker. If you have never had one, I feel sorry for you.

All In all, it was a great way to spend the weekend. Here is to next year!

Later!

Photos descriptions! The first two are of my son and one of his best buds doing what best buds do best! Shooting at each other with Airsoft BB guns! How I have great memories of BB gun fights as a kid. I hope they cherish their fights too! The next one is of my daughter getting ready to shoot her brother and friends with her BB gun pistol. The mask is a bit big but the outfit she was wearing is hilarious! Nothing like princess clothing for a gun fight! The next one is of my wife shooting my M1 .30 carbine. This is a WWII vintage gun that shoots really smoothly! It is a blast to shoot! The second to last is of the foam sword fight that broke out just before supper! The kids were really wearing themselves out but having a great time doing it! And finally, the last one is of me making the most delicious of desserts, homemade ice cream! The recipe we use is close to 150 years old and we don't change a thing. I could eat a ton of it. The only thing missing this weekend, was my Mom's homemade chocolate sauce to go on it!

More cooking with Fire

Here are the two last images of the fish boil. You can see the last part of the mushroom cloud from the kerosene fuel buring and the final extinguishing of the fire after the boil over. Again, this is quite a bit of fun to see and take part in, and the food is quite tasty!

later!

Now that's cooking with FIRE!!!

Hey Now! That is what I call a fire! Recently, at a meeting of the very small sportsman's club I belong to, we had a traditional Door County (Wisconsin) fish boil. What this is, is basically a simple proceedure of boiling onions for 10 minutes, adding red potatoes for 10 minutes, then adding Lake Michigan White Fish for another 10 minutes and at the end of the 30 minute cooking time, throwing on about 12 oz of kerosene or diesel fuel (as seem in the first photo) onto the fire which super heats the fire and the water, causing a great fireball and the water to boil over. This boiling over is essential as whitefish is very fatty, and the boiling over of the water removes all the nasty fat residue and also extinguishes the huge fire you now have under your kettle! ( I have more photos of the fire and boil over and will try to post them.) Once you can get to the kettle, you can lift out the baskets that hold the fish, onions, and red potatoes and set them out on the table and it is a feeding frenzy! It tastes delicious! Also it is traditionally served with cherry pie. I am not sure about the history of this cooking recipe, but most of the people in the Wisconsin area are Northern European, either Norwegian, Swedish, or North German and I suspect that this tradition comes from the early settlers to the are of Door County, Wisconsin. I could be totally wrong, but either way, it is alot of fun and tastes great!

You can find all kinds of similar recipes by googling Door County Fish Boil, but few mention the super heating process at the end.

Enjoy!

later!

Best 4,,, ok, 2 days of Gaming...

Lots Of Pics!

Scroll down for descriptions!

Let's see.. where to start. Okay, Gen Con #40 was this last weekend, and as it says, it is the best 4 days of gaming. I headed out on Friday morning with the family and a friend in caravan mode. We got to Indy that afternoon, shortly after lunch and immediately discovered that parking is much harder to find than planned. But we persevered and found a nice cheap spot only a mile or so from the convention center. A funny thing happened on the way to the center. No sooner than we were about a block from the Mecca of gaming, we over hear a conversation that goes something like this... "The cloak was used for as a protection cloak instead of invisibility...." We knew we were in the right place. Anyway, we got in, got registered, got the incredibly heavy swag bag and were off to get a lay of the land. I have been once before, but the rest of my family and my buddy Dave had not. So we went exploring and I think they were a bit stunned by the sheer size of the convention. We did not have a game scheduled until 5pm that afternoon, but we needed to get some food and get checked into the hotel. We wandered around the exhibit hall and gawked at all the stuff on display. Not just games and gaming material but, flesh and blood. As Dave said, I was prepared for the high gamer geek level at the convention, but not prepared for the costume party and potential babe fest at Gen Con. (You can see some of the Conan Babes posing with my daughter) He was right after all. Gaming is geared toward males, aged 14-20 and most of the displays, if appropriate, took full advantage of using the babe factor to get people into the booth, or some of the female costumed characters dressed as a gamers fantasy come true. Heck, while hanging out at the True Dungeon Tavern and playing a game of Three Dragon Ante, a chain mail bikini wearing gal comes right up to us and asks us what we are playing. I don't really know what her real purpose was, but she certainly was not shy. I am kind of glad my son was gone at the time, but he got eye fulls later on throughout the weekend.

But we did not come to gawk. We came to game and game we did. We got involved in a big game of Epic Battlelore with the game designer and had a great time. (My team won!) My son was the only one to score points on the other team, so at least losing for him was not totally a loss. Then later, everyone on the family got to join a Settlers of Catan game and I think my daughter really impressed some of the strangers in the game at how good she really is at the game. It was a blast and maybe on of the best times at the convention. We were also invovled in some other games, including the huge Memoir '44 game (seen in photo #6) with none other than the CEO of the game company that makes the game! (Very cool from a gamers point of view) we did not win but we came awful danged close. The time at Gen Con was a blast and I really hope to make it again next year. My son said he definately wants to go again and so that is a good thing and makes it more likely. We will see.

Now to the photos.

Photo #1 This is the D&D room sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. Everyone there is playing a Role-Playing Game... and what you see is only about a third of the room!

Photo #2 This is the kid gaming room, normally filled with a bunch of really good games, but lo and behold, Dave and I found Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robots! We had to relive the childhood of the 70's once again! (I seem to recall them being bigger when I had them.)

Photos 3&4 Julian in the Role Playing game room with some of the gaming mock ups! Nice atmosphere for gaming, and the floor, much like a dungeon tile door, I think could double as a dance floor!

Photo 5 The kids with Lord Vader.... There was another Darth Vader at the con, but he was not any taller than I am so, he had to be an impostor.... We also think that George Lucas was spotted at convention too.

Photo 6 The big "Overlord" version of Memoir '44. It was an 8 player game with myself, Dave, Julian and the overall commander, Henry on one side.

Photo 7 This is Julian and I with E. Gary Gygax, the creater of Dungeons & Dragons, the game the created all other role playing games and started Gen Con 40 years ago. Meeting him was a bigger thrill than I expected it to be. After all, he is responsible for some of my best memories as a kid. It was actually an honor to get to meet him. I did have him sign my DM guide... okay... call me a geek now!

Photo 8 The Conan Babes in front of the Conan video game booth. These girls were here all day long and had probably been asked by thousands of guys to take pictures, but this was the first time I actually saw them looked excited to take a photo! They really glammed on to Cora taking a photo with them. And speaking of Conan, I got to talk with the Secretary and Treasurer of the Robert E. Howard foundation and got some really good info on some stuff for a new blog posting... but that is for another time.

As of right now, I have to stop typing. So, if you can, go to Gen Con next time! You will not be disappointed!

Later!

Game On!

Update on things...

Okay! So what has happened since we last met? Quite a bit actually! My son returned from his trip to England, Wales and Ireland. We are still getting stories from him and it seems to have been a really great experience for him. He had a great time and made some really good, new friends. It took him a while to get back into the swing of things at home, but after finding him a job walking beans for a week or so, that helped put him back on track.

Both of the kids had birthdays. My daughter turned 9 and my son turned into an official teenager. I think we had good days for them. Each of them had friends over and we got them some nice, but not out of world gifts. It is nice that they are not be more discerning about their gifts and that one or two, rather than more is enough for them. We also planned a large party for them with some other family that has a birthday in August. We rented out the local sportsman's club and had a family day of fishing, shooting, cookout and just hanging out. Later that evening, the invited friends showed up for a DJ that came to play tunes for them. All in all, it was a great evening. Things learned from this party though... Glow stick liquid can irritate some peoples skin, and glow sticks float on the lake and they certainly can't stay in the lake, so loading a canoe on a van at 10pm is not much fun and physically holding it to the top of a van is quite a workout...

Other things...
on a down side, a family in town, very good friends of ours, are facing the decision of having to move in the near future to follow a job. This pretty much sucks for them because of all the reasons it would. Packing, selling, leaving school, etc. But it sucks for us too, as they are probably some of our best friends in town. It would really be a downer to have them leave. We, and they, are holding out hope that something will keep them in the area. But right now, I don't have much hope. It would also mean that I will have to look for a new gamer buddy, as he is my main gaming friend.

Speaking of games, I am heading out, with the family, to Gen Con over the upcoming weekend. It was a great time last year, which was my initial year. I convinced the family to go and I hope that we all have a great time. I have some apprehension that there may be some logistical problems, but I hope we all have a good time. (If you don't know what Gen Con is, think of it as the Mecca of gaming conventions with 30,000 other people who share the same love of gaming as you might.)

And school starts up in one week, and think that maybe, just maybe, my kids are looking forward to it. I think that three months of travel, heat, and just hanging out at home has killed their enthusiasm for summer vacation. We will see. I personally am looking forward to having them back in a routine.

So, that is it for now!

Talk at you later!